During the span of April through May, Kendrick Lamar Duckworth and Aubrey ‘Drake’ Graham have been feuding and both sides have released diss tracks about one another, creating mass drama in the Rap community as well the whole music industry.
What led to this initial drama was supposedly the song “First Person Shooter” created by Drake on Nov 15, 2023 and featuring the rapper J. Cole. In the song J.Cole mentions that he, Drake, and Kendrick were the “Big Three” of hip hop. Kendrick saw this as somewhat disrespectful and on Mar 21, 2024, Kendrick featured on the song “Like That” by Future and also featuring Metro Boomin. In the song Kendrick exclaims that there is no big there “It’s just big ME”.
This is where everything started to go a lot deeper than catchy rap songs. On Apr 5, 2024, J.Cole responds to Kendrick on the diss track “7 Minute Drill” exclaiming that Kendrick’s last album was mediocre and “Tragic”. However, two days after “7 Minute Drill” was released, Cole was present at the Dreamville Festival in North Carolina. He addressed the crowd towards the end of his performance in a six-minute speech, where he reflected on the “Might Delete Later” album. He admitted he was “conflicted” about the song “7 Minute Drill” and just didn’t sit right with him. Ultimately apologizing publicly to Kendrick Lamar.
Drake on the other hand did not back down nor apologize and on Apr 19, Drake dropped the diss track “Push Ups” where he mostly made fun of Kendrick’s height and shoe size. This song wasn’t focused entirely on Kendrick either, as Drake also dissed producer Metro Boomin and other artists like Future and The Weeknd. On Apr 20, just one day after Drake’s diss track, he releases “Taylor Made Freestyle” and the reception to song was very heated as the song introduced A.I voices, consisting of 2Pac and Snoop Dogg. This was very controversial and was taken as disrespectful towards the rapper 2Pac.
Apr 30th comes around and Kendrick responds to Drake in the diss track “Euphoria” where he responds to everything Drake has said and outright demonstrates hatred towards Drake and what he stands for. Kendrick warns Drake that he is only scratching the surface and could go much further.
May 3rd, Kendrick drops “6:16 in LA” and the title itself has multiple meanings! OJ Simpson’s case beginning, fathers day, 2Pac’s birthday, HBO’s exclusive show “Euphoria” that was released on June 6, and produced by Drake, a bible verse, a flight to Los Angeles (LA), and the exact time Kendrick released the song!
In the song Kendrick takes aim at Drake’s friend group and label OVO, saying that he has a mole in his group feeding him information.
The beef escalated greatly. Drake drops “Family Matters.” on the same day “6:16 in LA” was released. Drake insinuates on the song that Kendrick is a domestic abuser and talks about his strained relationship between him and his fiancee. However, he still remained unfocused and spent time on the song dissing other artists like Metro Boomin, The Weeknd, Future, and Rick Ross, not taking this conflict as seriously as Kendrick was.
Less than an hour later, Kendrick releases the song “Meet the Grahams”, and this song does not hold back. The song is written as a letter to members of Drake’s family, starting with the son that he hid from the world (Adonis) progressing to his parents and then an alleged second child that Drake is supposedly hiding, an 11-year old daughter, and finally, to Drake himself. It talks about his addictions to sex, drugs and gambling and how he is an absent father.
On the exact same day, Kendrick releases “Not Like Us”, the final diss track Kendrick made. This song is quotable, catchy, and overall a very good song. It not only reached the number 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100, it was the most trending thing on all social media platforms. Kendrick calls Drake and his friends in OVO all pedofiles and calls out Drake for leaching off other rappers to appear more hip.
Drake releases his final song on May 6th, titled “The Heart Part 6”. The song was received badly, very badly. Drake makes defenses to the allegations and tries to get back at Kendrick by saying he fed him information and Kendricks creative manager, Dave Free, was the father to one of his children. These were very weak claims, as no evidence has been shared to the public about the validation to these accusations. Drake also mentions that he expected to be called a pedofile from Kendrick!?
This rap beef was making headlines, people all over the internet were very engaged in the feud, even people that have never listened to rap before were invested. To add more salt to the wound on Drake’s side, Metro Boomin released a free beat titled “BBL Drizzy” and hosted a $10,000 event to promote the best verse on the beat. This made anyone around the world be able to diss Drake from the comfort of their own home.
In the end, J.Cole is the real winner here, staying out of the beef before it started.
